Over the years, the Disney Channel has produced some of the world’s biggest stars. But while some turn their TV fame into highly successful music or acting careers, others are not so fortunate. Some former Disney actors now live out of the industry altogether, while others made headlines for arrests, scandals, or messy public feuds. Childhood fame can make or break a career. And Disney has plenty of examples of both. Here is a list of Disney child actors who, sadly, crashed and burned.
Orlando Brown
You can’t turn on social media without seeing Orlando Brown these days. Unfortunately, it’s not the actor we once knew. Brown, who blew up on That’s So Raven, is now a shadow of his former self. Talent aside, Brown became better known for trouble than roles. At 19, he was arrested for marijuana possession. Nine years later, battery, resisting arrest, and methamphetamine charges landed him in jail for 62 days. By 2018, he was arrested for breaking into a friend’s restaurant, and in 2022, another altercation involved a hammer and a knife. Brown starred in Family Matters, Max Keeble’s Big Move, and voiced Disney shows The Proud Family and Fillmore!, but legal troubles and public outbursts have overshadowed his career. Today, you’ll see him being interviewed on talk shows where he regularly dishes out juicy details about other celebrities.
Jake T. Austin
Jake T. Austin started acting in 2003 on The Late Show with David Letterman before voicing several characters and landing Max Russo on Wizards of Waverly Place. After the show, he joined The Fosters, putting him on track for A-list status. Legal trouble hit in 2013 with a hit-and-run and a DUI, landing him 24 months’ probation. Austin admitted he “got caught by the trap of being in Hollywood, running with the wrong crowd, making some bad choices and also not taking the work seriously.” He’s done minor roles since, voiced Blue Beetle in 2016, appeared on Dancing with the Stars, and starred in Adverse, which premiered in Portugal in 2020.
Shia LaBeouf
Shia LaBeouf got his start on Disney Channel as Louis Stevens in Even Stevens, performing stand-up at comedy clubs by age 10 to help support his family. The show ran from 2000 to 2003 and earned him an Emmy for Outstanding Performer in a Children’s Series. After Disney, he starred in Constantine and the Transformers films, but legal troubles and alcoholism followed. LaBeouf faced plagiarism accusations, public drunkenness, and disorderly conduct, before entering rehab and therapy, where he was diagnosed with PTSD. While he still appears in feature films, LaBeouf is mostly ostracised from Hollywood.
Ronni Hawk
Ronni Hawk got her start in 2014 with Shannon Kummer’s short film Oblivious, sharing the screen with Jay Jay Warren, before landing her Disney Channel role as Rachel Diaz on Stuck in the Middle in 2016. After three seasons, she joined Netflix’s On My Block as Olivia Delgado, only for controversy to hit when past tweets supporting Trump and opposing gun control surfaced. Fans reacted strongly. Hawk apologized and expressed excitement for season two, but Delgado’s fate was sealed, “always going to die,” according to the show’s creators. She later appeared on S.W.A.T. and Legacies. According to E! News, on July 31 2020, Ronni was arrested for intimate partner violence/domestic abuse.
Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan rose to fame as a certified teen star, starting with soap operas and commercials before landing The Parent Trap remake, where she played twins. Mean Girls cemented her as a household name and launched careers for Rachel McAdams and Amanda Seyfried. Everything unraveled around 2006 as addiction, arrests, and partying made her “difficult to work with.” She spent nearly eight years on probation, bounced in and out of rehab, and lost roles along the way. Lohan’s late-2010s return included Sick Note and judging The Masked Singer Australia, but the career she once had as a bankable star now feels like a cautionary tale. Of course, her most recent work in Freakier Friday could spell a comeback for the star.
Lalaine Vergara-Paras
Lalaine Vergara-Paras started on Broadway in Les Misérables before moving to TV films like Borderline. She broke out as Miranda Sanchez, best friend to Hilary Duff’s Lizzie McGuire, earning an Imagen Award nomination along the way. After Lizzie McGuire, she appeared on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Disney’s You Wish, and was even set for a spin-off with Selena Gomez, which never happened because Disney went with Hannah Montana. By 2007, Vergara-Paras faced legal trouble, charged with meth possession. She ultimately completed rehab after a guilty plea, but the early promise of her career never fully recovered.
Mitchel Musso
Mitchel Musso was Disney’s go-to kid, earning fame as Oliver Oken on Hannah Montana and landing Young Artist Award nominations with his cast. He starred in Pair of Kings and hosted PrankStars, rubbing shoulders with Selena Gomez. Everything derailed in October 2011 when Musso, then 20, faced DUI charges. Disney fired him, wrote him out of Pair of Kings, and canceled PrankStars. He kept voicing Jeremy Johnson on Phineas and Ferb, but his career never regained full traction. Musso later faced alleged public intoxication and theft in Dallas, denying the claims: “There was no theft, and I was not intoxicated. It’s just been unfortunate.”
Adam Hicks
Adam Hicks made his mark on Disney as Luther Waffles in Zeke and Luther from 2009 to 2012, later joining Pair of Kings as King Boz after Mitchel Musso’s exit. Things unraveled when Hicks struggled with substance abuse and mental health, telling People, “The major issue is that I tried to keep it a secret. I tried to keep it to myself because of the pressure of having to sustain.” In 2018, he was arrested in connection with armed robberies alongside his girlfriend and served four years in prison. Since his release, Hicks has shifted focus to music, dropping tracks like Chosen One and Famous.
Kyle Massey
Kyle Massey rose to fame as Cory Baxter on That’s So Raven, later starring in Cory in the House from 2007 to 2008. He also voiced Milo on Fish Hooks and appeared on ALLBLK’s Millennials. Massey’s career shifted in 2021 when he was charged with immoral communication with a minor over alleged Snapchat messages from 2018–2019. His team called the allegations extortion attempts, saying, “Massey intends to aggressively defend these accusations again and will seek civil damages from those that refuse to hear the facts.” Massey hasn’t booked another Hollywood role since.
Britney Spears
Britney Spears got her start on The Mickey Mouse Club alongside Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera, but fame came with a heavy cost. After hitting the charts with racy performances as a teen, Spears spiraled into dangerous behavior, struggled with addiction, and spent time in multiple rehab programs. Her public meltdowns (which includes shaving her head, confronting paparazzi, and driving with her child on her lap) led to a strict conservatorship controlled by her father. Spears regained independence, a journey documented in the Netflix film Britney vs. Spears, giving fans a firsthand look at the challenges she faced behind the headlines.
RELATED: 10 Actors Who Quit Acting Forever
